


shooting star

by kmo



Category: Prime Suspect (UK), The Fall (TV 2013)
Genre: F/F, Fandom Trumps Hate, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 10:04:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10004483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmo/pseuds/kmo
Summary: Nearly twenty years after their one night stand, Jane Tennison and Stella Gibson reunite.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speedingtowardthelight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speedingtowardthelight/gifts).



> This story takes place shortly after the final season of Prime Suspect, in which Jane retired after admitting she was an alcoholic. It also could be seen as a missing chapter from my Stella/Jane fic Exception, but it's not necessary to have read Exception to understand this story.

There were a hundred reasons Jane shouldn’t have come here tonight.

At AA, they had gone on and on about the dangers of old acquaintances and old habits. Her sponsor treated Jane’s sobriety like it was some kind of two-week-old asthmatic kitten that needed to be coddled and protected and kept indoors. A whiff of someone else’s gin and tonic wasn’t going to make Jane chuck everything she’d been working at for the past three months in a bin.

But the old acquaintances part. There might have been something to that, Jane thought as she wound her way through the crowded pub. The White Rose was a cop bar. It had been old when Jane was first in uniform. The fug of tobacco still hung in the air, no matter that it had been years since one had been able to smoke indoors in London. There was nothing particularly white or rosy about the place; the floor was perpetually sticky from a half-century of spilled beer, and nicotine stained the photographs left on the wall.

Nothing particularly rosy about the place at all, except for the blonde woman at the far side of the bar, the one with the petal soft skin and the pale blouse, shining like a diamond in a dung heap. She regaled a circle of onlookers hanging onto her every word, blonde curls bouncing in the dim light. “And that’s where we found the body—right between a frozen Tikka Masala from Sainsbury’s and half a pint of chocolate ice cream!” The crowd laughed right on cue.

Stella’s sharp blue eyes met Jane’s across the crowded pub. They seemed to sparkle in recognition. Stella didn’t speak or motion for Jane to come over, but Jane felt the pull of her gravity all the same.

Jane’s heart sank like a stone. This was a mistake. She couldn’t face her now, not like she was. Farnam, the guest of honor, got a splendid retirement ‘do, lots of claps on the back and a golden watch. Jane had slunk away in disgrace.

Suddenly she wished her coke had a bit of rum in it.

The thirst, the trembling, shook her up. She went over to Farnam and gave him a hug. “Sorry, David, gotta run. Best of luck with the retirement.”

“Going so soon, Jane? I wish you’d stay.”

“That’s what they all say,” Jane said, brushing them all off with a suggestive wink of her eyebrows. It earned her a few laughs from some of the young DCs.

Tight, false smile plastered on her face, Jane fought her way to the door and fresh air. She lit up, cigarette flaming to life in her hand, and sucked it down like mother’s milk. AA was fine with smoking, coffee, candy…even encouraged it. Seemed like trading in one addiction for another, but as long as she wasn’t drinking they didn’t seem to care.

Jane had been a fool to come here tonight. Her sponsor had been right—she wasn’t ready. Not for the old habits or the old acquaintances. Jane checked her watch—6:45. If she hustled, she could make the 7:30 meeting at the Community Centre on her way home.

The pub door opened behind Jane, startling her. A wave of noise and the yeasty smell of beer tumbled out, along with one Stella Gibson.

Stella sauntered over, hands in the pockets of her fine wool coat. “Good. You’re still here.”

“Hello, Stella,” Jane said, fighting to keep her voice even, itching to jump in the next cab and run away. She felt undone under Stella’s ice water blue gaze. Was this really the same woman, barely more than a girl really, who had bruised herself on the male egos of Jane’s incident room almost twenty years ago? At times Stella seemed like another creature entirely, an avenging angel fallen from the heavens.

“You’re a hard woman to chase down, Jane Tennison. I’ve had an easier time with some criminals.”

“Should be no problem for you. Met rising star and all that.” She gestured offhandedly in Stella’s direction, unwilling to meet her eye. “Cigarette?”

“No thanks. Not my vice.”

“So I’ve heard.” Stella’s amorous exploits were well known in the corridors of New Scotland Yard. When she brought in the Camden Cannibal, the joke was that it took a maneater to catch one. Woman-eater, too, Jane recalled with a blush.

If Stella registered the barb, she didn’t acknowledge it, like water off a duck’s back. She put her hands back in her pockets and sidled over closer to Jane. Jane could swear she felt her body heat, rippling like a warm wave through the cool London air. “I never got to say goodbye before your retirement.” Stella sounded wistful, sad. “I would have liked to take you out for…coffee.” _A drink_ is what she would normally have said. Word of Jane’s vices must have gotten around, too. “It would have been nice to catch up.”

She’d always kept tabs on Stella and followed her career with interest. Sometimes Jane would catch a glimpse of Stella’s bouncy golden hair as she turned a corner, hear the click of her heels on the tiled floors of the ladies’ washroom. But they had never worked together again since that first time. Since _that time_ , Jane’s first time with a woman…with Stella. There had been other women since then, but Stella burned in her memory far brighter and far hotter than any lover she had ever known. The intensity of it frightened her.

Jane threw down the butt of her cigarette and crushed it beneath the heel of her loafer. “You’ve done well for yourself, DCI Gibson.”

Stella’s lips quirked upward into a smirk, equal parts sly and sexy. “It’s to be Detective Superintendent Gibson soon. It’s not been made official yet.”

Jane let out a low whistle. “Congratulations.” Jane had been past fifty when she made DSI—Stella was barely forty. “And so your star has risen just as mine has fallen.” The words fell out of her mouth, dark and bitter, before she knew what she was saying.

“All shooting stars are falling stars, I suppose.” Her eyes were cold and the set of her lips was grim as she said it. Stella was no dummy; she knew how the Met loved to chew women up and spit them out. “If I have gotten this far, it is because of women like you. But you never had a never had a _you_ , Jane. And I’m so sorry that most people will never see what it cost you.”

Stella laid her hand on Jane’s arm and Jane felt her touch sear. Stella was always too warm, too bright, too beautiful. Jane let her touch linger.

Stella stepped to the curb, and with a winsome toss of her curls, hailed a taxi. When the shiny black cab pulled up she turned back to Jane expectantly and said, “Normally this is the part where I’d ask you to grab a drink. But since you don’t drink, I’m just going skip the preliminaries and ask you to come home with me.”

Jane licked her lips. “My flat’s closer.”

*

Sobriety had its advantages. One of them was a cleanly house. If this assignation had happened three months ago, Stella probably would have been tripping over empty green bottles of Tanqueray as they made their way to the bedroom. Like the first time, Stella was direct, unvarnished, and unashamed of what she wanted from Jane. She had stripped them of their clothes in record time. Jane’s wool sweater embraced Stella’s silk blouse in an intimate tangle on the bedroom carpet.

They kissed each other, breasts teasing breasts, Stella’s long golden hair brushing Jane’s short silver strands. Stella probed inside Jane’s mouth with her tongue, firm and commanding in a way that made Jane moan, even better than she remembered.

Stella slid her leg between Jane’s thighs and pressed her hands down on her shoulders, clearly ready to take control. And while the thought of surrendering to Stella made Jane wetter than anything, she had something else in mind.

She pulled out of Stella’s embrace and said, “Lie down on the bed.”

Stella looked back at her, clearly bemused at the unexpected authority in Jane’s voice, but complied.

Jane loomed over her and began to roll Stella’s nipple between her fingers, kept rolling and twisting until she felt Stella squirm. “I’ve learned a few tricks since the last time we did this,” Jane said.

Stella cocked a single eyebrow. It was the sexiest thing Jane had ever seen. “Is that so?”

Jane bent down and took Stella’s nipple between her teeth; she didn’t stop sucking until she heard Stella cry out. She kissed her way down Stella’s flat hardened stomach until she reached the coarse blonde curls covering her mons. She nuzzled Stella’s curls, blew on her cunt warmly, teasingly, until she felt Stella open before her like a flower.

Jane took another pillow and propped it underneath Stella’s bum, raising her hips slightly.

Stella’s hands toyed with the strands of Jane’s hair. “You _have_ learned a few tricks.”

“Darling, wait and see.”

Jane thought she might have heard something like a muffled giggle—it was hard to imagine the beautifully icy Stella Gibson doing something as girlish as giggling, but somehow it heartened Jane to know she could make her laugh. Jane bent her head to her task. Stella was already thoroughly wet for her and so eager, Jane didn’t have the heart to tease her. She plunged her tongue deep inside Stella’s cunt, gripping her ass with both hands. She tongue-fucked her and Stella fucked herself against Jane’s face shamelessly. Jane nudged her nose against Stella’s swollen bud, not caring, loving the feeling of Stella’s wetness spread all over her face, tasting her salty and sweet against her tongue. Jane feasted on Stella like a starving woman, drank her down with a thirst like she’d never known.

And then Stella came with a shout, hands tangled in Jane’s hair. Stella’s orgasm was a thing to behold—it flowed through her entire body like an orchestra tuning up, in sensuous rippling waves.

Stella pulled Jane up so she could kiss her face, eager to taste herself on Jane’s lips. “Mmm. Some things do improve with age.”

She slid her leg between Jane’s thighs, and Jane found herself pressing her knee against Stella’s still swollen sex. Stella rocked their hips against each other and Jane felt her wetness gliding against Stella’s smooth thigh. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this turned on; Stella’s lack of inhibition was contagious in the best way.

“You feel so good,” Stella moaned.

“You too.”

Stella dug her nails into Jane’s back, pressing her down and urging her to rock harder and deeper. Soon Jane was lost in the sensation of Stella writhing beneath her, her cunt spasming in time with Stella’s own. She felt herself blur with Stella, two of kind, as Jane came crashing against her with a hoarse cry.

Jane pulled the covers up around them, tucking them in. As Stella snuggled against her side, bare shoulder glowing in the moonlight, her only thought was that Stella Gibson might be her new addiction, one that she has no intention of giving up a second time.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for sapphicstellagibson who bid so generously on my Fandom Trumps Hate auction. I'm so thankful to her and to all of those to participated in Fandom Trumps Hate! I think Stella and Jane (and Gillian Anderson and Helen Mirren) would appreciate the money raised in their name. ;)


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